Little is known about therapies initiated by individuals for their own health problems, and what research on self-medication is available has focused primarily on adult populations. Only a few studies have specifically addressed the independent use of available medications (i.e., over-the-counter medications and left-over prescription medications) and home remedies by mothers for their children, and none of these has described such behavior in depth, related to specific mother-perceived symptoms and conditions in the child, or has attempted to provide an explanation for mothers' decisions in these situations. The objectives of this research are: (1) to fully describe mother's independent decisions to use readily-available medications and remedies in attempting to deal with illness conditions she perceives her child to have, including extent and types of medications, for what conditions, under what circumstances, and relationship of mother-initiated medication behavior (MIMB) to physician consultation; (2) to attempt to explain the MIMB process by assessing the range of mother's health-related attitudes concerning her child's health, safety and efficacy of over-the-counter and prescription drugs, sources of medication advice, availability of medical care, and sociodemographic variables; and (3) to determine what proportion of individual MIMBs are likely to be helpful, benign, and harmful. A systematic random sample of mothers (N equals 900) of children (1 to 12 years of age) presenting for Well Child care at two pediatric sites will be interviewed. Expert judges will rate MIMB. Study findings would provide extensive and unique descriptive information on MIMB for pediatric clinicians as well as data which would help to explain how such medication decisions come about, thus providing bases for possible future interventions aimed at obtaining desired modifications in MIMB.